Availability and Accessibility of Vacant Lots for Urban Cultivation in Post-Katrina New Orleans

2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 322-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuki Kato ◽  
Scarlett Andrews ◽  
Cate Irvin
Keyword(s):  
New Orleans ◽  
Urban Agriculture ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Current System ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Vacant Lots ◽  
Comprehensive List ◽  
Privately Owned ◽  
Vacant Space

Based on interviews with 44 urban growers in New Orleans, this study examines their experiences of establishing urban agriculture (UA) projects on publicly and privately owned lots, either through purchase or lease. Publicly owned lots are easier to identify, but bureaucratic application processes and unpredictable policy changes made access less predictable and insecure, especially in terms of purchasing. Leasing privately owned lots is often a straightforward procedure, but these lots are difficult to identify without a comprehensive list, and were rarely available for purchase. Ultimately, neither type of vacant space produces significantly more security in land tenure for UA projects. The findings indicate that availability of vacancy does not equal initial or long-term access to the growers, and the current system of making vacant properties available for UA raises concerns about the long-term sustainability of UA projects.

Gardening as More than Urban Agriculture: Perspectives from Smaller Midwestern Cities on Urban Gardening Policies and Practices

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Christopher Strunk ◽  
Ursula Lang
Keyword(s):  
Urban Agriculture ◽  
Green Space ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Community Gardens ◽  
Public Land ◽  
Vacant Lots ◽  
Urban Gardening ◽  
Privately Owned ◽  
Policies And Practices

For the most part, research and policymaking on urban gardening have focused on community gardens, whether in parks, vacant lots, or other public land. This emphasis, while important for many Midwestern cities, can obscure the significance of privately owned land such as front yard and back yard and their crucial connections with gardening on public land. In this case study, we examine how policies and practices related to gardening and the management of green space in two Midwestern cities exceed narrow visions of urban agriculture. The article explores the cultivation of vacant lot gardens and private yards as two modes of property in similar Midwestern contexts and argues that the management of green space is about more than urban agriculture. Instead, we show how urban gardening occurs across public/private property distinctions and involves a broader set of actors than those typically included in sustainability policies. Gardening also provides a key set of connections through which neighbors understand and practice sustainability in Midwestern cities.

From the Holy Trinity to Microgreens

2020 ◽  
pp. 111-131
Author(s):  
Pamela Arnette Broom ◽  
Yuki Kato
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Effects ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Urban Agriculture ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Urban Sustainability ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Holy Trinity ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City

This chapter focuses on gentrification of the foodways in post-Katrina New Orleans, particularly how the emerging narrative of urban agriculture presented the practice as a new idea, despite the long-standing tradition of local food production and procurement practices in the city. We combine a personal experience of being a long-term urban gardener in the city with grower interviews to illuminate what aspects of the new urban agricultural scene in the city are distinct from the tradition of growing and eating locally that predates the storm. With its emphasis on geographic dimension (e.g., grown locally), the new notion of locality associated with urban agriculture tended to dissociate from the social and cultural dimensions of the preexisting local folk foodways (e.g., native plants grown by the locals). As a result, we argue that the popularity of urban agriculture among the newcomers, albeit well-intended, had adverse effects of discouraging many long-term residents from getting engaged with urban agriculture, keeping them from opportunities such as entrepreneurialism, community health, and urban sustainability.

scholarly journals Long-Term Development of Urban Agriculture: Resilience and Sustainability of Farmers Facing the Covid-19 Pandemic in Japan

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4316
Author(s):  
Shingo Yoshida ◽  
Hironori Yagi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Agriculture ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Direct Marketing ◽  
Farming System ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Short Supply ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Urban People

The coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic has forced global food systems to face unprecedented uncertain shocks even in terms of human health. Urban agriculture is expected to be more resilient because of its short supply chain for urban people and diversified farming activities. However, the short-and long-term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on urban farms remain unclear. This study aims to reveal the conditions for farm resilience to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and the relationship between short-term farm resilience and long-term farm development using data from a survey of 74 farms located in Tokyo. The results are as follows. First, more than half of the sample farms increased their farm sales during this period. This resilience can be called the “persistence” approach. Second, short-term farm resilience and other sustainable farm activities contributed to improving farmers’ intentions for long-term farm development and farmland preservation. Third, the most important resilience attributes were the direct marketing, entrepreneurship, and social networks of farmers. We discussed the necessity of building farmers’ transformative capabilities for a more resilient urban farming system. These results imply that support to enhance the short-term resilience of urban farms is worth more than the short-term profit of the farms.

scholarly journals Resilience, Reinvention and Transition during and after Quarantine

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 230-236
Author(s):  
Kristof Van Assche ◽  
Martijn Duineveld ◽  
S. Jeff Birchall ◽  
Leith Deacon ◽  
Raoul Beunen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Current System ◽  
New Governance ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Systemic Risks ◽  
The Social ◽  
Problems And Solutions ◽  
Governance Tools

Quarantine measures and the crises triggering them are never neutral in the sense that a return to the past is impossible. These measures are also a signal of other things like systemic risks and weaknesses. A period of quarantine is also a thing in and by itself. What happens after quarantine is thus shaped both by the state of the social-ecological system preceding quarantine and by what happened during quarantine. The selectivities introduced during quarantine span discursive, institutional and material realms. Old discourses can return with a new meaning. Social and economic relations can reappear seemingly unchanged, they can be more visibly altered and they can be dismantled. Ideologies, however, to be understood here as master discourses, read problems and solutions in their own way and do not necessarily come closer to each other or disappear. All this, offers food for thought regarding the possibilities and limits of resilience and transition. We argue that the current COVID- 19 pandemic casts doubt on the generic applicability of theories of resilience and transition, yet also sheds a new light on the value of both. We propose the concept of reinvention to describe what is happening and what could happen in a more coordinated fashion. We argue that the current crisis reveals mechanisms in systems dynamics that point at the existence of multiple pathways after dramatic system shocks. Some shocks and their system- specific responses (such as a particular kind of quarantine) are more amenable to resilience strategies afterwards, while others require a path of radical transition. They might also both be needed: a rather stark transition now might ensure future resilience. While the outline of the system after transition is not clear, some desirable features are clear as are the risks and damages of the current system. Also clear is the argument for transitional governance, a temporary governance system (beyond quarantine) which can enable the construction of new long term perspectives in governance and new governance tools meant to reduce chances of a crisis like this one reoccuring.

When Vacant Lots Become Urban Gardens: Characterizing the Perceived and Actual Food Safety Concerns of Urban Agriculture in Ohio

2015 ◽  
Vol 78 (11) ◽  
pp. 2070-2080 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHELLE L. KAISER ◽  
MICHELE L. WILLIAMS ◽  
NICHOLAS BASTA ◽  
MICHELLE HAND ◽  
SARAH HUBER
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
Soil Quality ◽  
Urban Agriculture ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Soils ◽  
Fresh Produce ◽  
Urban Gardens ◽  
Soil Contaminants ◽  
Improve Access

This study was intended to characterize the perceived risks of urban agriculture by residents of four low-income neighborhoods in which the potential exists for further urban agriculture development and to provide data to support whether any chemical hazards and foodborne pathogens as potential food safety hazards were present. Sixty-seven residents participated in focus groups related to environmental health, food security, and urban gardening. In addition, soils from six locations were tested. Residents expressed interest in the development of urban gardens to improve access to healthy, fresh produce, but they had concerns about soil quality. Soils were contaminated with lead (Pb), zinc, cadmium (Cd), and copper, but not arsenic or chromium. Results from our study suggest paint was the main source of soil contamination. Detectable polyaromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) levels in urban soils were well below levels of concern. These urban soils will require further management to reduce Pb and possibly Cd bioavailability to decrease the potential for uptake into food crops. Although the number of locations in this study is limited, results suggest lower levels of soil contaminants at well-established gardens. Soil tillage associated with long-term gardening could have diluted the soil metal contaminants by mixing the contaminants with clean soil. Also, lower PAH levels in long-term gardening could be due to enhanced microbial activity and PAH degradation, dilution, or both due to mixing, similar to metals. No foodborne pathogen targets were detected by PCR from any of the soils. Residents expressed the need for clearness regarding soil quality and gardening practices in their neighborhoods to consume food grown in these urban areas. Results from this study suggest long-term gardening has the potential to reduce soil contaminants and their potential threat to food quality and human health and to improve access to fresh produce in low-income urban communities.

Coercing the Delta. The French Grammar of Control in the African Landscape of Colonial Louisiana, 1699-1732

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-563
Author(s):  
Nicholas Paskert
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
Chattel Slavery ◽  
Performative Language ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
French Grammar ◽  
French Louisiana ◽  
French Design

The long-term transformation of the Louisiana delta beginning in 1699 has been primarily understood as a French colonial struggle for the control of nature. Yet, in order for French colonisers to control nature, they first sought to control enslaved Africans. While slave coercion was a daily problem for French inhabitants, documentation of the 'routinized violence' of chattel slavery is predictably absent in records of the built environment. As a result, the building of colonial New Orleans, beginning in 1718, has become a story of French design, not of enslaved African labour. This paper examines the accounts and correspondence of French colonisers who veiled their own dependence on indigenous, indentured and enslaved people by adopting a performative language of mastery as they projected or described labour projects essential to the 'control of nature'. What colonisers could not master in person they performed on paper via pronouns, tenses, constructions and the passive voice. The 'French' Louisiana delta is better understood as an African-built landscape reinscribed on Indigenous territory under French coercion.

Building a Home: Everyday Placemaking in a Toxic Neighborhood

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (5) ◽  
pp. 709-727
Author(s):  
Maricarmen Hernandez
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Petrochemical Industry ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Toxic Exposure ◽  
Scarce Resources ◽  
Housing Stability ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Petrochemical Complex ◽  
Extended Exposure

Why do residents of a contaminated area actively organize to formalize their land tenure and continually invest scarce resources in the fortification of their homes, despite their high-risk locations? Existing research documents the collective struggles of residents of contaminated communities to leave toxic areas or to confront polluting industries. Drawing from long-term ethnographic fieldwork in an informal settlement located next to a highly polluting petrochemical complex in Esmeraldas, Ecuador, this article presents the case of a marginalized community that is not only well-aware of its toxic exposure but also actively organizing and investing time and resources to ensure its permanence in the area. This article shows that the strenuous circumstances under which families moved into the neighborhood after multiple displacements, their continued struggle to remain there along with their longing for housing stability have contributed to their extended exposure to the poisonous toxic externalities of the neighboring petrochemical industry.

scholarly journals Policy brief for Privately Protected Areas Futures 2017: Supporting the long-term stewardship of privately protected areas

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Selinske ◽  
Mathew Hardy ◽  
Ascelin Gordon ◽  
Andrew Knight
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Financial Costs ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Conservation Values ◽  
Key Drivers ◽  
Successive Generations ◽  
Privately Owned

Globally, privately protected areas (PPAs) are an increasingly popular approach to long-term protection of biodiversity on privately owned lands. PPAs provide multiple ecological, social and economic benefits to diverse range of stakeholders in across a range of contexts. These include supporting the desire of landowners to protect conservation values on their land, contributing to national conservation targets, and reducing financial costs of land management togovernments. In addition, they provide opportunities to engage landowners to strengthen community social and conservation values through positive partnerships with governments, NGOs, and other groups. This policy brief explores the key drivers of landowner participation in PPA programs (i.e.covenants, easements, servitudes and other long-term agreements with individuals or groups of landowners) and the program mechanisms that maintain successive generations of landowners to be engaged and committed to long-term stewardship. It also considers the challenges faced by PPA programs in developing and maintaining strong collaborative arrangements between the stakeholders involved in these programs.

The Case for Combining Pump Maintenance and Systematic Upgrading

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heinz P. Bloch ◽  
Robert Bluse ◽  
James Steiger
Keyword(s):  
System Performance ◽  
Current System ◽  
Highly Qualified ◽  
Centrifugal Pumps ◽  
Term Operation ◽  
Performance Requirements ◽  
Periodic Maintenance ◽  
Work Supports

Virtually, all industrial machinery requires periodic maintenance for dependable long-term operation. In fact, the very term “maintenance” is defined as keeping machines in the as-designed or as-purchased and manufactured condition. At issue is whether the equipment owner’s profitability objectives are best served by “maintaining only”, or by judiciously combining maintenance and upgrading tasks. Assuming the answer favors combining maintenance and upgrading, the question arises whether an intelligent and well thought-out combination of maintenance and upgrading should be entrusted only to the original equipment manufacturer (OEM), or if qualified non-OEMs should be considered also. The co-authors would like to offer their answer to the question. Experience shows that a highly qualified independent rebuild shop with demonstrated capabilities and experienced personnel can offer high-quality upgrades that improve both uptime and efficiency. Such a shop can do so consistent with current system performance requirements. With the considerable consolidations in the pump industry, the distinct possibility exists that the OEM is not able to offer the same engineering competence he previously had and that independent shops should be considered. This presentation deals with a case study and details where such upgrading was being planned, implemented, and verified to have had the desired results. It further explains the role played by competent pump rebuild shops (we chose to call them “CPRS”) in these important endeavors. Our work supports the premise that rebuilding a vintage process pump to original OEM specifications makes no sense, given current pump rebuilding technology and changes to the system performance that occur over time. We find compelling reasons to systematically upgrade the efficiency and potential run length of large centrifugal pumps. Of course, this upgrading must be pre-planned and then carried out during a future maintenance outage.

scholarly journals How should we regulate artificial intelligence?

2018 ◽  
Vol 376 (2128) ◽  
pp. 20170360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Reed
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Neural Networks ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Current System ◽  
General System ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Human Decision

Using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to replace human decision-making will inevitably create new risks whose consequences are unforeseeable. This naturally leads to calls for regulation, but I argue that it is too early to attempt a general system of AI regulation. Instead, we should work incrementally within the existing legal and regulatory schemes which allocate responsibility, and therefore liability, to persons. Where AI clearly creates risks which current law and regulation cannot deal with adequately, then new regulation will be needed. But in most cases, the current system can work effectively if the producers of AI technology can provide sufficient transparency in explaining how AI decisions are made. Transparency ex post can often be achieved through retrospective analysis of the technology's operations, and will be sufficient if the main goal is to compensate victims of incorrect decisions. Ex ante transparency is more challenging, and can limit the use of some AI technologies such as neural networks. It should only be demanded by regulation where the AI presents risks to fundamental rights, or where society needs reassuring that the technology can safely be used. Masterly inactivity in regulation is likely to achieve a better long-term solution than a rush to regulate in ignorance. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The growing ubiquity of algorithms in society: implications, impacts and innovations'.

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